My Free Patterns

Saturday, 30 September 2006

I am calling my 11th motif the Wiggly, so because of the effects in the chains. I got the idea for it after looking at Mark's motifs using the lockstitch chain (LSC). The wiggly chain is basically a sequence of lockstitches, made up of two ds with a picot in between.

Friday, 22 September 2006

My latest entry to the challenge - another bookmark, also in two colours.

I had planned to put another round to it, that is why the picots on the outer chains are as they are. When I finished it, I kept looking at it for a while, wondering what design I should make for the outer round. Made a few tries but it caused the bookmark to be wider that I would have liked it to be.

In the end I just left it as it is. If I had not planned for another round, I could have made the picots larger and more decorative. Maybe it will not be the end. I will keep looking at it and see if new ideas pop up.

If I put two black dots at the top and a point at the bottom, it might look like a caterpillar - just a thought, LOL.

Saturday, 16 September 2006

This five-point star did not start this way. I began with this green one and it turned out into a square instead. Then, I thought, increasing the ds count in the centre ring might expand it a bit and will have allowance for one more point. But a bigger inner ring-size will not match well with the outer rings. Instead, I just play about with the placements of the picots in the inner rings and it came out just right. Amazing, what a difference a picot made.

With some white thread still on the shuttle, I made something else, and it turned ou to be one of those rare times when is clicked on the first attempt. It is a frill that can be added as decoration on a cookie jar or something similar.

Monday, 11 September 2006

This is my second heart design. My daughter gave the idea for the name - she said it looks like a crown.

I started with wanting to have two interlocking hearts, but the first attempt didn't turn out very nice. The piece did not hold it's shape and tend to go lop-sided.

I learned something while making this. A good thread is really worth it. Like Lori, I have some cheapo thread that I use for designing purposes. In fact, the first few attempts of this motif was using that thread. When I felt happy with the design, I use the DMC Cordonnet for what I though would be the final one. But along the way, I made some changes, and had to unpicked certain portions a few times. But the thread remain good, without much fraying where I had unpicked it.

So, it is really worth paying for good thread. But the problem that I have locally is the dificulty in getting good quality thread. What we have here are Anchor, Cebelia and Manuela - in limited choice of colours. The Manuela are only variegated ones, no solid colours. Even then, not may shops have stocks of them. In this scenario, maybe I will still need to use cheap, low quality thread for my designing purposes.

Monday, 4 September 2006

There were already some thread in the shuttles so I made something from them, as it came off my head, after roughly doodling something on paper. This was made in one round. The rings in the centre are all split rings.

I am quite amazed at how easily this one turned out. Usually, when I want to design something new I would first make rough sketches on paper. Then I would try them out and make changes along the way. Often I had to cut them off midway and start again.

But with this one, it came out after two attempts only. In the first attempt, I found that the middle rings are a bit big, and the chains are not meeting in the centre. When I reduced the count for the ds, they met perfectly.

When I finished it, I noticed the centre chains are a bit long and do not lie flat. I think you can see it warping up a bit in the centre. This was made in two rounds.

So I made another one, this time reducing the ds in the centre chains by 2, and it looked better than the first one. After that I continued adding two more rows and finished it off as a small doily. It measured 4.5in or 12cm across. I think it could be easily be made into a tablecloth or something by joining several of it together.

About Me

This is my blog about tattinglace, a kind of knotted lace handmade with shuttle(s) and thread. I have been a tatter for more than 15 years and there are still more to learn about tatting and its techniques.
You won't find anything about tattoos here. If you have reached here by mistake, please stay a while and browse through this blog. You may like what you see.
Thank you for stopping by.